Playwrights

Other than the bestselling superstars, who get profiled in the papers and invited onto daytime chat shows, writers as a rule fly under the radar. We rarely know what they look like. Playwrights are generally even more obscure than novelists – and poets might as well be invisible. (Poets might as well not exist, to my mind, for all the difference they make, but that’s a contentious debate for another time.)

When I ran a couple of these portraits past family and friends, interested to see whether they recognised anyone, I got few positive replies. Could have been down to the quality or otherwise of the pictures, of course, but I think it was more to do with the fact that playwrights generally live an even more shadowy existence than authors. In the first instance this could be mainly because there are a lot more people between us and the playwright. The novelist or short story writer or essayist speaks to us directly, usually in their own voice, and we often see their photograph on the back cover of their book. The playwright, to all intents and purposes, remains invisible behind the cast who stand on stage presenting his or her words on their behalf. And those actors are usually more vivacious and attractive anyway than the hard-pressed dramatist, toiling away anonymously at the coalface, sweating to mine the glittering nuggets these luvvies get to say for our delight. It’s a thankless task in many ways, and not for everyone, but then again the playwrights presented here seem to be managing well enough. Good to see so many smiling faces, and it’s not just because a lot of them write comedies.

Some of my favourites do, of course, like Neil Simon, and Michael Frayn’s Noises Off is still the funniest play in the world even when you’re just reading it on the page. Some are here because I’ve acted in some of their pieces (Ayckbourn, Gray, Shaw, Vanbrugh), and then there are those whose work inspired me at a formative age to try my hand at playwriting myself (Hare, Pinter, Shaffer, Stoppard). Peter Nichols (A Day in the Death of Joe Egg) was actually born in my hometown of Bristol, and I once had the pleasure of acting opposite Doug Lucie in a magical production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Oxford. It was also at Oxford that I saw a spectacular and full-blooded student production of Peter Barnes’s The Bewitched.

Alan Bennett, pre-national treasure days, is represented by a much younger portrait than we are used to, by way of reminding us that by the mid-sixties, with Beyond the Fringe behind him and his first stage success Forty Years On in the offing, he was already a much more subversive and tougher prospect than many people give him credit for. Don’t let that mild manner and cosy Yorkshire accent fool you; his TV sketch show was called On the Margin not just to hark back to Beyond the Fringe, but also to indicate he was going just about as far as the BBC would let him at the time.

As with the Authors gallery, I’ve again added the title of the first work of each writer that I read or saw which was so good it turned me on to the rest.

[And of course, Tom Stoppard, Alan Bennett and Clive James were my specialist subjects when I appeared on Mastermind all those moons ago. Check out how I did here.]

Alan Ayckbourn

(1939‒)

Relatively Speaking (1965)

This was the first of his I read, and what a brilliantly sustained piece of fluff it is. His next, How the Other Half Lives, remains stunningly inventive, and over the decades he has proved himself a master of his medium and keen observer of a certain kind of middle-class British angst. Always funny, but regularly darker than you might think.

Peter Barnes

(1931‒2004)

The Bewitched (1974)

Not as well known as he deserves to be (he also wrote The Ruling Class), but there was a dazzling production of this play at Oxford in the mid-70s directed by Greg Hersov, who later became artistic director of the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester, featuring a lot of students who went on to become professional actors. It’s a raucous black comedy about the constitutional crisis caused by the deeply troubled Carlos II of Spain in the late 17th century. A girlfriend of mine got burnt at the stake halfway through. Bit harsh, as she was lovely, and it wasn’t really her fault.

Alan Bennett

(1934‒)

Getting On (1971)

This play was probably the first of his I sat down and read, before I became intimately acquainted with the rest of his oeuvre because this one was so good. Bernard Levin once said Alan Bennett writes “beautifully”, which is not to be taken to mean he is in any way fey or delicate; his writing is tough and crafted, it makes its points while making you laugh, and can be simultaneously both funny and sad. What else can be a lot like that? Oh yes. Life.

Noël Coward

(1899‒1973)

Brief Encounter (1945)

Probably more valuable as a period piece than anything else these days, but it’s that very historical perspective which makes it so valuable. People didn’t only speak differently then, they thought and acted differently. They were used to hardship, and they understood sacrifice and morality. Above all, they treated each other decently and with respect. It must have been nice.

Michael Frayn

(1933‒)

Noises Off (1982)

Probably the funniest play ever written. The fun starts with the programme notes for the play within the play: ingénue Brooke Ashton (Vicki), for instance: Her television appearances range from Girl at Infants’ School in ON THE ZEBRAS to Girl in Strip Joint in ON PROBATION. Cinemagoers saw her in THE GIRL IN ROOM 14, where she played the Girl in Room 312. I would love to see a good professional production on stage but I’m afraid it might actually kill me.

James Goldman

(1927‒1998)

The Lion in Winter (1966)

The dialogue is the thing here, no wonder Peter O’Toole and Katharine Hepburn had such a ball doing the film. “In my time I've known contessas, milkmaids, courtesans and novices, whores, gypsies, jades, and little boys, but nowhere in God’s western world have I found anyone to love but you.” Who’d have guessed that the older brother of screenwriter William Goldman could catch that tone of rough romanticism so well? He also has the future King Richard I say, “When the fall is all there is, it matters.” Once heard, never forgotten.

Simon Gray

(19364‒2008)

Otherwise Engaged (1975)

I’d started reading Simon Gray long before I had the chance to act in one of his lesser-known works, Close of Play (1979). I didn’t appreciate it at the time, so involved was I in learning the pages (and pages) of monologue that had so attracted me to the part in the first place. But there is a lot of perceptive humour here, of a peculiarly piercing and British kind. See also Butley (1971) or, even better, Quartermaine’s Terms (1981).

Sir Christopher Hampton

(1946‒)

The Philanthropist (1970)

Can’t remember whether I read this first and then saw a student production of Savages at university, or vice versa. But the man was an inspiration. He too had read the same Mod Langs at Oxford as me, only a decade before, and had become the youngest person ever to have a play on in the West End, When Did you Last See My Mother? (1965). If he could do it then maybe…? Well no, of course not. But he proved that such success was possible in this imperfect world.

Sir David Hare

(1947‒)

Knuckle (1974)

He has a large body of work and has won many prizes and much acclaim, so any reticence on my part must be a me problem. But even after all this time the man still doesn’t engage me as much as my favourites do. Why not? I have no idea. And I’m meant to be trained in textual analysis. Maybe it’s the politics? I don’t believe plays need to be political; his tend to be, even if not overtly or explicitly. Ah well.

Doug Lucie

(1953)

Oh Well (1978)

I’m including Doug Lucie here because we were both in a lovely outdoor production of Shakespeare’s Dream at Oxford. He was either the rude mechanical who held up the lantern or he was the thorn bush. Or he might have played the wall. Whatever, he must have learnt more from the experience than I did because he has carved out a niche for himself as a tough left-wing voice. Kudos.

Peter Nichols

(1927‒2019)

A Day in the Death of Joe Egg (1967)

Nichols is unusual for the amount of transparently autobiographical detail he offers in his work. Joe Egg was taken directly from life, and includes what must be one of the most stunning first act curtains of the modern era. It’s the kind of thing that can only work on a stage – even the film version with Alan Bates and Janet Suzman could not recreate it, which just goes to prove that the theatre is at its best when it’s more than just people talking.

Joe Orton

(1933‒1967)

What the Butler Saw (1967)

One of the inspirations for my spoof What the Butler Looted. My main problem with Orton is that you always know what you’re going to get – twisted morality, sexual depravity, and one-dimensional cartoons rather than properly rounded characters. Maybe he was just lucky to be born at a time when his unique brand of schoolboy humour was going to find an audience. And he was trendy to a fault. He certainly met a sad end, but at least he made the most of his brief success when it came.

Harold Pinter

(1930‒2008)

No Man’s Land (1975)

Pinter can do nasty better than anyone else, and it can be very unsettling. No Man’s Land is more strange than unpleasant, but it’s still typical of one aspect of his method. The characters don’t retain the same names throughout, so who are they really? And what are the hovering thugs all about? It’s hilarious but baffling. So how important is it? Who knows?

JB Priestley

(1894‒1984)

An Inspector Calls (1945)

Another one I was in during my years as an amateur actor. Read it at school of course, then some time later had the chance to interview the director Stephen Daldry about the ground-breaking and celebrated revival he put on in the 1990s. Its message is pretty unsubtle, but at least that makes a refreshing change these days.

Terence Rattigan

(1911‒1977)

The Winslow Boy (1946)

Rattigan was the master of the so-called well-made play, the kind of entertainment for which the radical writers of the 1950s – or at least the critics who supported them – reserved so much vitriol. Rattigan himself showed his class by sponsoring the transfer of Joe Orton’s play Entertaining Mr. Sloane to the West End.

Sir Peter Shaffer

(1926‒2016)

The Royal Hunt of the Sun (1964)

I’d read this long before I got to see Equus, so I was already aware of Shaffer’s stagecraft and his partiality for big themes. I also liked Black Comedy (1965) which was set in a pitch-dark room but coup-de-theatrically reversed the conventions of light and dark so the audience could see what the hell was going on.

George Bernard Shaw

(1856‒1950)

Mrs. Warren’s Profession (1893)

Such earnest preaching as Shaw indulged in is probably easier to put up with now, given that his themes are mostly historical. We imagine that’s how they must have talked about things then. He couldn’t get away with such bum-numbingly long diatribes these days. Luckily when I was in this, I just had a cough and a spit as the Reverend Gardner.

Neil Simon

(1927‒1918)

The Odd Couple (1965)

All those years writing Bilko certainly paid off, and the collaboration with that other theatrical genius, director Mike Nichols, probably didn’t hurt. He was always good with food jokes: OSCAR: I got brown sandwiches and green sandwiches. MURRAY: What’s the green? OSCAR: It’s either very new cheese or very old meat. Or this from The Prisoner of Second Avenue: harried executive Mel Edison bemoans how bad modern bread tastes and tells his wife, “If I knew what was going to happen, I would have saved some rolls when I was a kid.”

Sir Tom Stoppard

(1937‒)

Travesties (1974)

Maybe the first I read but I filled in the rest pretty quickly. Night and Day was as good as anything I’d ever seen on stage, then he wrote The Real Thing, than which I thought nothing could be more perfect… until Arcadia came along. And all this before The Invention of Love was even a twinkle in his eye. I also rather like his radio play Darkside (2013), a philosophical comedy based around themes in the Pink Floyd album Dark Side of the Moon. He is a good brain wrapped up in a good man, like Stephen Sondheim.

David Storey

(1933‒2017)

Home (1970)

I understand he wrote Home as a way of trying to overcome his writer’s block on something else he was working on. Took him no more than a weekend or something. The spareness of the dialogue might suggest it was probably rattled off in a hurry, but such sureness of touch requires enormous control and astonishing powers of invention. Very English, very moving. Unique. When last I looked, a TV version starring Gielgud and Richardson was still available on YouTube.

Sir John Vanbrugh

(1664‒1726)

The Provok’d Wife (1697)

I was in this one too, playing the minor role of the servant Blade. Or was he called Rasor? Whichever, the other was the name of the servant in the spoof I wrote for the cast party. What I can’t get over is that when he wasn’t writing restoration comedies, Vanbrugh was busy designing Blenheim Palace and Castle Howard. I mean… pick a lane, man.

Keith Waterhouse

(1920‒2009)

Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell (1989)

We had to do Billy Liar in school which I thought was a bit ho-hum – what ambitious and frustrated teenager didn’t have an extravagant fantasy life to brighten up the workaday routine? But this biographical comedy about the raffish and disreputable Soho journalist was in a different league altogether. I can’t understand why anyone would want to spend all their time in a pub, but if the dialogue and company is as witty and colourful as this, I might be prepared to drop in occasionally.